


Words Upon Their Skin

by AmeliaFriend



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 04:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9106387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaFriend/pseuds/AmeliaFriend
Summary: Because every fandom needs a 'First Words Written On Their Soulmates Skin' AU.Lenore and HG have different reasons for attending Edgar's Dinner Party (HG needs to meet more people, and Lenore is literally the hostess, she has no choice) but neither were expecting to meet their soul mate.





	

Herbert is four years old the first time he truly comprehends what a soul mark is.

                “Okay, um, you, Goggles.”

As far as soul marks go, it’s … okay. But it’s a soul mark. It means that somewhere – out there in the big wide world – there is the perfect person for him. And that’s his soul mate.

It’s interesting for about three minutes before he goes back to his toys, uninterested in the words written in a delicate feminine cursive up his forearm.

 

He does like the name ‘Goggles’ though.

It makes him sound clever.

And Herbert likes sounding clever.

* * *

Lenore is four years old when she realises that the lack of words on her skin is a _bad_ thing, when a cousin visiting for some holiday or another, pushes her over in the back garden and calls her a ‘nobody’, a ‘nothing’, and tells her she will never be loved, that she will never be liked, because she’s blank, because she’s soul mark less, because she is _worthless_.

 

For a four-year-old, Lenore’s kick is rather powerful, and she laughs when he bursts into tears.

That cousin is not invited back to the house again.

* * *

Herbert George is eleven, and he wants to be called HG now.

(Herbert George is _terribly_ embarrassing, you see, and he is long past the stage of being embarrassed.)

(He says with big glasses, and knobby knees, and oversized clothes, and knowledge flowing from his brain.)

 

The neighbouring children start calling him ‘Goggles’.

They’ve never seen his soul mark; they came up with it all of their own ‘genius’.

But it’s not the way he imagined being called ‘Goggles’.

It’s horrible and it’s nasty and they’re only doing it to tease him.

Tease his glasses, tease his intelligence, tease his inventions.

And he hates it, because he turns – he always turns – when he hears the word ‘Goggles’ – because it might be _her_.

(He doesn’t know who _her_ is yet, but he will.)

 

Eventually he stops turning, he hears the word ‘Goggles’ and he keeps walking – faster and away from the word.

He doesn’t want to meet someone who calls him ‘Goggles’.

He doesn’t want to meet his soul mate.

How can someone be his _soul mate_ if they’re so _cruel_.

(Who cares about soulmates anyway?)

* * *

When Lenore is eleven years old, she decides the reason she doesn’t have any words on her skin, is because she has too many soul mates.

If she had the words from every single soul mate in her life, there’d be no room left on her for anything else.

 

After all – she’s only eleven and she’s already had _three_ loves of her life.

(None of them had her words, but that doesn’t matter – because they were only the loves of her life that week.)

 

She decides she has too much love for the universe to give her only one soul mate.

So she’ll have to share her love with the whole universe.

(It’s only fair.)

(Who cares about soulmates anyway?)

* * *

HG is older now, and he’s more mature, and he doesn’t _hate_ his soul mate anymore, and he’s stopped running away from the word ‘Goggles’.

(It helps that he’s moved away, that no one calls him ‘Goggles’ simply to tease him anymore, that all his peers are as interesting in inventing and reading and writing as he is.)

 

He wonders about the owner of the handwriting on his arm sometimes.

He wonders if she thinks about him, wonders what his words are, where his words are.

He wonders if she’s looking for him.

He hopes she is.

He tries to look for her – but his words are about himself, so they’re not help to him.

 

(His friend’s words are literally his soulmates name. He tracked her down, and they met, and well – they’re soul mates – they fell in love. HG thinks that is a bit unfair to the rest of them that have to wait for their soul mates to show up the old fashioned way.)

 

So he’s wistful occasionally.

 

(He finds the Goggles that will become _his Goggles_ at a street market, and falls in love with them on the spot.)

(He carries them around with him everywhere.)

(He’s allowed to make it easier for her to find him.)

* * *

Lenore’s never been shy about her lack of a soul mark, but Guy is the first ‘Love of her Life’ that doesn’t have one either.

It’s … nice. Knowing that there _isn’t_ someone out there, more perfect for him she than is.

(Because – let’s be real here – she’s perfect for everyone.)

 

He’s sweet and he’s wonderful and his favourite subject to talk about is _her_ (and that’s one of her favourite subjects as well) and his family is just overjoyed that he’s found someone as wonderful as she is, and when she accepts his marriage proposal, she’s convinced she’s made the right decision.

 

Maybe there’s no one out there already perfect for her (perfect for either of them), but maybe they can (somehow) be perfect for each other regardless.

 

(Soul marks aren’t everything, you know.)

 

(She just has to go and screw it up by dying on her wedding day though.)

* * *

It’s almost six weeks after her death that Lenore finally notices something different about herself.

(Well – even more different than waking up and discovering that she’s dead and her fiancé’s killed himself).

She has words now.

They’re scrawled up her back.

(Which explains why it took her so long to notice them.)

(Also, it isn’t like she takes her dress off very often. She literally cannot wear anything else – she’s tried – and the dress is always non-corporeal if she is not wearing it, so it cannot be washed. There’s really never a point to removing it.)

It’s a hurried script – someone writing as fast as they can between one idea and the next, before it disappears entirely – and it looks like a handwriting that belongs to an interesting person.

                “Oh, that?” No, no, no, no. That’s a waste of time.”

Lenore has to laugh at the irony of the universe.

No soul mark or soul mate when she was alive. But now she’s _dead_.

Now she’s a _ghost_.

(Okay, so maybe she isn’t completely used to the idea yet. But she’s coming around to it. Slowly. And it isn’t like there’s anything she can do about it now anyway.)

 

She wonders what she says first.

(A soul mark like hers is definitely the response. So she speaks to her soulmate before he speaks to her.)

(She’ll have to be interesting. Make sure she makes a good impression.)

(It’s not like she’s likely to miss her soul mate though.)

(It isn’t a common sort of sentence – especially to a stranger.)

 

She wonders if he’s a ghost as well. And if that’s why it took dying before the words appeared for her.

She wonders how he died.

If it was as lame as her death.

 

Four days later, she moves into a house with one Edgar Allan Poe (at the recommendation of her bezzie, Annabel. She’s owes her big time for this though. There was not enough warning about the _ravens_ ).

And he’s just … really weird, and she literally never leaves the house, literally never meets anyone new, and she doesn’t … forget … about her words, they just aren’t that important to her.

 

She’s wistful occasionally though.

* * *

This Dinner Party is a disaster.

Dead people and disrespect to the soup, and – seriously – have any of these authors been in a normal social situation in their lives?

They’re idiots. All of them.

At least she still has her drinks though.

Her drinks still love her.

 

In all the chaos, it’s no surprise that the slightly nerdy looking guy with the strangest looking goggles, and the greatest social ineptitude manages to escape her notices until _after_ three murders, a blackened loaf of bread and him sticking his face in the soup in a move that was just honestly the most disrespectful thing that had happened all evening.

 

When she says “Who’s the best writer?”, she _means_ who has the best handwriting.

But of course they all think they’re the best writer, and they all raise their hand – and people are _dead_ , this is seriously not helpful. So she picks one at random, and she picks him simply because his goggles stuck out to her at that very moment in time.

 

“Okay, um, you, Goggles.” She throws him the notepad – and he fumbles with it, worse than Edgar is if he has to catch something, and are any of these people any good at anything _remotely_ physical, because Lenore is thinking the answer is no, and she’s already turned away from him, already continued on without realising the sudden whiteness of said ‘Goggles’ face.

If she had, she probably would have been curious.

But she didn’t. So she wasn’t.

* * *

Goggles.

Goggles.

Goggles.

 

She said his words.

The words currently burning up his arm – not literally but figuratively – and he can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything, because…

 

“Okay, you, um, Goggles.”

 

And she was definitely talking to him, and she definitely said his words, and individually they were common words, but not in that combination they weren’t.

 

(And she said his words.)

(He’s found his soul mate.)

(She’s a ghost who haunts the house of a distant friend of his.)

(But that’s okay.)

(They can work with that.)

 

And has he spoken to her yet?

He can’t remember. Can’t remember if he has had a chance yet to say her words.

(He hopes she has his words – it happens sometimes that soul mates don’t match – and he thinks that would break his heart, because he’s only known her for twenty minutes, and she’s only said four words directly to him, but he’s already half in love with her.)

(They’re soul mates – or she’s his soul mate at least – falling in love that fast is okay in these situations.)

 

And she’s stood in the same room as him, and she’s still talking.

(And she’s a ghost. Yes. Still a little stuck on that.)

And she’s beautiful, and she’s snarky, and she’s a little bit scary, and he is so far gone already.

 

And he’s supposed to be working on the ‘Murder Board’.

He’ll get back to the ‘soul mate’ thing when there is less death.

* * *

And he wants to speak to her, wants to know if his words are reciprocated – but he can’t. Not in front of this many people.

So he speaks to the group as a whole, and studiously avoids her gaze (only he doesn’t. Not that she seems to notice.)

 

And when the idea of splitting up is brought up, it’s the perfect solution for some peace and quiet – some time to figure out what’s going on in his head, to figure out how he should proceed with this whole ‘soul mate’ thing.

 

Oh – and work out who killed three of their companions.

That’s slightly important as well.

 

At least it’s an opportunity to see if his ‘cah-mera’ works as well as it should.

 

He doesn’t expect _her_ to volunteer to come up to the attic with him.

(It is her attic though, so maybe he should have expected it.)

(Oh well.)

* * *

She does _try_ to talk to him on the way up to the attic (she’s not rude – despite what certain depressive authors might say about her), but he just smiles nervously, or looks in any direction that isn’t her, and generally doesn’t respond.

He’s even weirder than most of the authors at this god-forsaken dinner party.

(And that is seriously saying something.)

 

He’s been even weirder since his bread-blackening machine (that’s not what it’s called, but it’s exactly how she would describe it) electrocuted Mary Shelley in front of all of them.

And she supposes that makes sense – fear of death generally makes people act weird (not her though. She’s already dead.)

 

They’re actually in the attic before he (finally) speaks to her.

He’s tinkering with something that looks decidedly electronic (there’s wires and tools and she is very confused) and not like looking for clues to the three murders downstairs – so she just asks him, “Aren’t we supposed to be looking for clues?”

It’s just an innocuous question, and she half doesn’t even expect to reply.

But he does.

 

                “Oh, that? No, no, no, no. That’s a waste of time.”

 

And he keeps talking – about how he’s looking for future clues, for clues that haven’t even dropped yet, and his machine will capture a picture of the culprit.

 

But Lenore isn’t really listening anymore – her brain having suddenly flipped into ‘holy shit’ mode.

Because she knows those words, she _knows_ those words, they’re the words scrawled across her back, and she’s spent more time than she’s willing to admit wondering who was the owner of her words, and here is he sat in front of her, and he’s rambling, and it’s actually adorable.

 

And he said her words.

Her _words_.

He’s her soul mate.

 

And she knows she’s spoken to him – directly – this evening, but she can’t remember what her first words were to him, can’t remember if he reacted in any way, has no idea if he’s her soul mate too.

And Lenore is not nervous – she’s never nervous – but there is a like 98% chance that this nerdy professor sat in front of her is her soulmate, and this is a very new situation for her and she doesn’t know what to do.

 

And he’s talking and she’s talking – and to someone who doesn’t know Lenore, she would look entirely normal, entirely comfortable, but she’s not.

And yeah, they’re talking about the murders, and yeah, she started this line of conversation, but he’s still rambling and she doesn’t know any other way to bring up the topic so she just says it.

 

“You said my words.”

And Lenore is not nervous – she’s never nervous – only this time she is, because she doesn’t want to be one of those people in a non-reciprocal soul mate … thing.

But there’s an almost audible grinding sound as his voice stutters to a stop, and he looks kind of terrified, and kind of hopeful, and kind of like he either didn’t hear, or doesn’t think he heard her correctly – so she takes pity on him, and repeats herself.

“You said my words.” There’s very little emotion in her voice (aloud that is, the inside of her head is still a screaming pit of emotion and feelings and words, but that might actually terrify him if she let it loose, so she keeps it reined in.)

“Your … words?” And his voice is dry, and his brain is doing something entirely unhelpful and he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, and she’s still waiting for him to say something.

“You said mine.” He finally chokes out. “Goggles,” he explains as best as he can, considering his current difficulty with speaking, “You called me Goggles.”

 

And Lenore remembers that – remembers how he fumbled with the notepad after she threw it to him.

But Edgar is useless at anything resembling hand-eye co-ordination, and she’d just assumed he was same.

(He is – he probably would have fumbled with the notepad anyway, it just so happened that the shock of his words didn’t help very much.)

 

There are probably worse places to meet your soul mate than at a dinner party where already three people have been murdered.

She can’t think of any right now, but she supposes there must be some.

Somewhere.

Maybe.

(There are definitely better places to meet though.)

* * *

They’re talking about everything and anything – their pasts, their presents, their futures (assuming they still have one – there is a murderer about). And they’re so different but they’re the same as well, and the conversation comes easily and quickly and HG doesn’t think he’s had a conversation (with an interested participant) for this long in _years_ , and Lenore doesn’t understand half the words coming out of his mouth, but she wants to know (and he wants to teach her as well).

 

HG mentions how he hated his soulmate when he was younger, how the word Goggles was turned against him.

 

Lenore says how she didn’t have a soul mark when she was alive, so she loved everyone, she had a new love of her life every week. She died on her wedding day and her fiancé killed himself over her, and when she came back, she discovered she had a soul mark.

She never would have met him if she had lived. But she would still have been HG’s perfect soul mate.

He would have died having never met her if she had lived.

She doesn’t know how she feels about that.

 

And there’s a moment when they’re sat so close to each other, and they’re just _looking_ at each, and he wants to kiss her.

But he doesn’t. And he goes back to his machine, and she finds him some more wire.

(There is still a killer on the loose, you know.)

* * *

There’s a scream, and they have to leave their little bubble, and rejoin the rest of the household.

 

So … Dostoyevsky is dead. And Charlotte is looking _really_ suspicious.

And Lenore doesn’t say anything about the whole ‘soul mate’ thing, so HG isn’t going to either (what would he even say anyway? “Sorry about all the dead people but hey, I found my soul mate. Now let’s just make sure I don’t die.” That would just be a terrible idea.)

 

Mar… George dies next.

And Agatha turns up (finally) but she’s dead before she hits the floor (the knife in her back being pretty suspicious.)

And Charlotte can’t have done them, because she was literally tied up at the time.

 

And the séance is HG’s idea – but he took it from Lenore’s story, and she thinks it’s a good idea, and is also the only one with any way to contact Krishanti – so it was really her decision to call the psychic.

 

They’re not even stood close to each other during the séance – they’re almost on opposite sides of the room in fact – but they can’t help glancing over at each other.

And HG knows who Guy is the moment Lenore reacts to him, and no – they weren’t soul mates, but he literally killed himself over her death, so they were obviously very close – even if he’s moved on now.

The séance ends suddenly – a sneeze blowing out the candle, and Krishanti looking very pale, and disappearing to find some sage.

For their different reasons, one by one everyone leaves the study – until only HG remains, left with the remnants of his device, and a terrifying deer head.

He leaves too.

 

He finds them in the kitchen, and Krishanti has been strangled with the telephone wire.

(She could have told them what she suspected, instead of just disappearing. She probably would still have died, but at least the rest of them would now know who was trying to kill them. Selfish psychic.)

 

HG isn’t too worried for Lenore (she is already dead and literally cannot be harmed in any way), but Lenore is a little worried for HG (not that she would admit it aloud. And with Krishanti dead, there’s no one Lenore knows that would be able to bring him back should the worst happen.)

There are a lot – a _lot_ – of people dying, and he could be next, but the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to let her find the perfect other half of her soul, only for him to die within hours of their first meeting.

 

The universe couldn’t be that cruel.

* * *

So yes, she’s eager for him to get back up to the attic – back to the wires and the tools and the electrical things she doesn’t understand at all, and away from the literal axe-murderer somewhere downstairs.

And she can protect him up here – she literally cannot die, and she can protect him up here.

 

So she stays with him, in the attic and she watches him, and he watches her, and they’re working but they’re waiting as well, and there’s something going on downstairs, but that doesn’t really bother either of them right now.

They’re back in their own world – the two of them the only things that matter – and heaven help anyone who tries to disturb their tranquillity.

 

But HG needs to attach his cah-mera to the roof, and he can’t do it, but she can walk through walls, and it will only take minutes (at most), and he’s so proud of it, and it will work, and nothing can happen to him in the handful of minutes she’d be away, she’d hear, and she’d return, and she’d know if anyone turned up.

 

So she leaves (even if she doesn’t really think it’s the best plan for HG, it’s the best plan for everyone still gathered downstairs. And she has to think of someone besides herself occasionally.)

And she returns, and she knows she shouldn’t have left.

 

Because the gas is dissipating, but it’s still _there_ , and she’s never going to forget the cloying smell, the way it stuck to her throat even though she doesn’t need to breathe.

And HG is on the ground, and he can’t breathe, and he’s gasping, and his name is _Herbert George_ , and that’s a terrible name, and she’s corporeal without trying, and he can’t breathe, and he’s dying in her arms, and she refuses to cry in front of him, refuses that to be his last sight, and he can’t breathe, and he’s dead in her arms, and her heart tears itself into a hundred pieces and the universe could not be this cruel, and how could the universe be this cruel, she’s _just_ found him, and now she’s got forever, and he has got never, and how is she supposed to live forever with only the memory of two hours etched into her brain.

 

She barely knew him – she knows that – but how is she supposed to live forever and never get to know him.

They were supposed to have forever to figure everything out.

 

How could the universe be that cruel?

* * *

And she does cry – just a little bit – but she can’t stop, can’t let him die for nothing.

Because it is working, his cah-mera is working, and she can use to it catch whoever did this. She can use it to make them pay for this (and for everyone else who died tonight) and she’s not really sure what she’ll do if she does get her hands on whoever did this to her soul mate, but part of her _really_ wants to find out.

 

But she needs to take the screen to Edgar, but she can’t just _leave_ HG here – she can’t just leave him where he died, so she brings him with her.

It’s a completely illogical move, but she doesn’t care – carrying the screen under one arm, HG being dragged along by the other.

(She’s stronger than she looks.)

 

And it’s not her fault that there are constables, and maybe she should have looked who was below, before just crying out that HG was dead – but they should have warned her that someone was there.

Although, why they hadn’t just told them that there was a literal crazed killer somewhere in the house was beyond her. How were these idiots still alive?

 

And Edgar is trying to pretend that HG is just drunk, and no one believes it at all and then the constables die as well (because of course they do. Why were they drinking the wine anyway? That was hers), and everyone is being an idiot, and she can’t hold onto them both, she has to let go of HG or the device, and one of them will get damaged if she lets go, so it’s HG who slips out of her hand, who falls to the bottom of the stairs.

And she watches him fall, and can’t help but think that this is symbolic of something, and she doesn’t really want to think about it, because she hasn’t really accepted his death yet, and she doesn’t want to accept his death yet.

 

And there’s no logic to anyone’s actions, but everyone is just blaming everyone else, and everyone has motive and no one has motive, and everyone is just passing the blame to the next person.

And really – a lot of people are dead, including two police officers – they should really be handling this better, but the lot of them are idiots, so they’re not.

 

But then they try to blame her for the deaths, and for starters, that is just a ludicrous idea, but they don’t give in, and they press harder, and she doesn’t mean to let the sentence slip out but it does anyway.

“Any why would I kill my soul mate?”

* * *

And they may have expected her to try and defend herself – but certainly no one expected that sentence.

(To be truthful, even Lenore didn’t know she was going to say that until the words had already escaped, and by that point it was too late.)

 

The remaining guests (because there really weren’t many of them left. This really was a terrible excuse of a party, Edgar) take a half step backwards.

Everyone knows the death of a soul mate is a very serious thing – like 80% of soul mates die within two weeks of each other, the second literally just dying of grief.

She doesn’t really have that option – what with being already dead and all.

 

And Annabel tries to say something, but Lenore just pushes the comment off, and tries to move on, and she _will not_ cry, she will not cry – she has a reputation to uphold after all, and _crying_ will not help it in the slightly.

 

Only then it turns out that _Annabel_ is involved – and that’s impossible, because Annabel is the literal reincarnation of sunshine and happiness and rainbows, and she _cannot_ be involved with murder and death and Anti-Edgar-Plot-y-Things.

 

She just can’t.

 

But Annabel runs.

And then Annabel dies.

And Annabel has been Lenore’s friend since she was alive, and how can she be dead.

And Edgar just looks broken.

 

Lenore knows Annabel was Edgar’s soul mate.

(Everyone knows Annabel was Edgar’s soul mate. He wasn’t exactly subtle about it.)

Lenore also knows that Edgar was Annabel’s soul mate.

(Annabel was a lot subtler about it. To the extent that Lenore wasn’t supposed to know, and Edgar didn’t even know.)

(Annabel’s family didn’t consider Edgar a … good match, and Annabel always put her family first, and love was secondary to security, and Eddie could offer her security and … affection, if not love … and he was such a _Good Guy_.)

 

And Edgar just looks broken.

(And Lenore just knows he’s going to be one of the 80%, the ones that just … stop. That literally die of heart break when their soul mate is gone.)

(At this rate, she’ll be surprised if he’s still alive at sun up.)

* * *

And then everything just gets even more complicated.

It turns out Eddie is a Good Guy. Or dead. Or even Eddie.

 

He’s Edward de Vere, and he’s Guy’s brother, and apparently this whole thing is _her_ fault (even though it’s totally not – it not’s her fault Guy killed himself. If he had just _waited_. But she can’t change the past.)

 

And Charlotte’s sister has turned up from somewhere, and they’re both completely insane, and somehow Charlotte _still_ doesn’t understand the whole ‘being a ghost means I’m already dead’ thing.

And tries to kill her again.

 

What did she say about idiots?

 

But then the police turn up (finally) and the Bronte sisters are shipped away amidst a barrage of Jane Austen puns, and Eddie managed to get away amidst all of the kerfuffle (or so Edgar claims, but he’s looking rather nervous.)

(She hates that she can tell his moods this well. No one else would be able to tell he was nervous.)

 

The constables and the bodies and Oscar and Ernest leave eventually.

And Lenore and Poe are left alone once again in that big empty house.

 

And the night is over.

The Dinner Party is over.

The ordeal is over.

 

But HG is still dead.

Annabel is still dead.

(As is Louisa, and Mary, Fyodor, and George, and Agatha, and Krishanti, and Emily, and Jim, and Jimmy – but they aren’t their soul mates, and thus less important in this exact moment.)

 

And nothing’s going to change that.

* * *

Krishanti’s friend contacts them two days later.

She wants to use their house to try and contact Krishanti.

(Apparently the ritual will work better when the practitioner is where the deceased … died.)

 

Poe isn’t up to talking to people, so Lenore replies.

She agrees.

On the condition that she helps them too.

 

Lenore has no recollection of her first séance (seeing as she was the one that Krishanti was trying to contact), and the ritual for _communicating_ with the dead is very different to the one for _resurrecting_ the dead (or bringing their ghosts back or whatever.)

Esmerelda is patient though, throughout the (actually quite long) process to be ready to contact Krishanti and attempt to bring her back, she just ignores Lenore as she sits on the other side of the room, and just watches.

Most people can’t stand to be in the presence of a ghost for that long, but it doesn’t seem to affect her.

Well – she is a friend of Krishanti’s after all. They’re all a … little weird. You have to be, for their line of work.

 

Compared to the amount of prep it takes, Krishanti’s return is rather anti-climactic.

A final candle is lit, and there’s sudden smoke, and too much light than there should be from such a little candle, and then Krishanti is there, in front of them.

 

And Lenore lets herself hope.

Just a little bit.

* * *

As Esmerelda had never met the other people who died in the house, she can’t contact _specific_ people, but she can send out (what Lenore would describe as) an open call for people who died in Poe’s House.

Hopefully that list is reasonably small.

 

And it is Annabel who’s first.

And Edgar had refused to be in the room, because he didn’t want to hope, because he wanted Annabel to be at peace, to be happy.

But he was clearly loitering just outside, judging by the speed at which he enters when Lenore calls his name.

 

She doesn’t think she’s ever seen anyone look as happy as the two of them look at each other.

(Edgar would totally deny it if he was ever questioned – but there were some definite tears, and not just on Annabel’s part.)

* * *

And Annabel and Lenore grow as close as they once were as children (being the same ‘species’ again will do that to two friends), and they’re awesome Lady Ghost Best Friends, and Lenore is teaching Annabel how to be the best ghost she can be.

And it’s even less of chore to be around Edgar. He’s still gloomy and depressive, but now she can just fob him off on Annabel if he starts annoying her too much.

 

But she can’t spend too much time with ‘Annabel and Edgar’.

They’re too happy, and too soul mate-y and she’d never say anything, but it hurts more than she’s willing to admit.

 

Because everyone has returned.

(Even people Lenore didn’t know had died on the grounds of the house.)

 

Lenore counts her blessings when it’s only her and Esmerelda in the room the time a certain Edward de Vere tries to force his way back into the land of the living.

That incident sparks a _talk_ with Edgar about secrets, and lying to the police, and lying to her, and figurative skeletons in the closet, and literal decomposing corpses under the floorboards.

Lenore gets rid of the body.

Annabel never finds out about any of it.

 

And still HG does not return.

 

And Esmerelda is kind about it, but there have been four attempts now with no response and everyone but him has returned, and she has to understand that sometimes … sometimes the dead move on before you have a chance to speak again.

(Lenore knows all about this little fact. She’s lived it before with Guy, and she can’t help but feel like she’s cursed.)

(Can’t help but feel like the people she should have spent her life with – living or dead – all manage to move on without her. And she’s left behind.)

 

Esmerelda leaves.

 

(Lenore absolutely does not cry into his Goggles, which she saved the night the police took his body away.)

(Absolutely.)

* * *

Lenore has nearly given up hope (except she hasn’t and that hurts more because she’ll never give up hope and it’ll keep hurting. That’s what it feels like anyway) when the smoke starts to fill the room.

She’s in a ‘Ghosting Lesson’ with Annabel (poor girl needs _far_ more help than anyone else and is still not even slightly scary or haunting or even uneasy. She’s still adorable though) and for a moment, Lenore thinks she’s fallen asleep in the middle of the day again, and is trapped in another nightmare.

 

It’s happened before – more than she’s willing to admit – the nightmares, the smoke filling the room, and she can feel him in her arms, dying once again.

She hates those dreams – those nightmares.

She hates the ones where he’s alive more.

They hurt more when she wakes up.

 

But this isn’t a nightmare. It isn’t even a dream.

 

The smoke dissipates and she stands before she knows what she’s doing.

Because he’s _here_. HG is in the room, and he’s grinning and he’s alive (if you count ‘ghost’ as alive) and he’s talking about time travel and waves and nerdy stuff, and he has no idea what he has put her through.

 

And right now she doesn’t care, because he’s here, and she’s here, and Annabel’s gone … somewhere, and they’re soul mates.

 

And they’ve got forever to figure everything else out.

 


End file.
